Inner voices

I woke up to an annoying noise under my pillow. It was my alarm. I felt like I’d only just gone to sleep. I looked at the time and wondered if I could afford a snooze. I usually allow 30 minutes snooze time so as always, I hit the snooze button and decided to get a little more shut eye.

As I lay there a conversation ensued between the two voices in my head. It went something like this.

1^st voice: “Shant (whom I forced to join me) isn’t going to come today. May as well sleep and start on Wednesday.”

2^nd voice: “Something will come up Tuesday night, you’ll skip Wednesday too. There will always be something or the other. You should just get up and go”

1^st voice: “You can go, but you haven’t even slept for 6 hours. Your body needs to be well rested. The trainers recommend an 8-hour sleep. You’ve hardly slept for 6 hours”

At this time I got the phone out to switch off the alarm and just go to sleep.

2^nd voice: “If you sleep now, you’re eventually going to wake up in a couple of hours. Just make sure you can face yourself in the mirror”

That’s it.....! That was a very powerful statement by the 2^nd voice. I realised that this was a commitment to myself. If I can’t honour that, how can I expect anyone to honour his or her commitments towards me?

Before I knew it, I was ready, in the elevator and on my way out. I decided to drive and measure the distance that I wanted to cover. It was just a bit over the 2.5 km mark. I parked the car, plugged in the music and was well and truly on my way.

I felt so powerful for not giving in to my lazy voices and waking up. I kept jogging taking in the sights of the city at 6.00 am. The senior citizen’s group, the regular morning walkers, dogs and cows along the way, the chai wallah filling cups as people wait for their buses, school kids packed in cars on their way to school, garam jalebi and gathiya stores opening up for business, the fresh air, no traffic. I can only hear the song on my iPod and the noise of my breath. Before I knew it, I had run 4 km's in 30 minutes.

As I approach my car, I am filled with a sense of achievement and pride. I feel confident about achieving anything I resolve to. With such a positive feeling, I stretch, get in the car and drive back home. Just picking the right voice has had a ripple effect packed with positivity.

Of course, once I get home, I’ve showered and am falling off to sleep again. (I didn’t have enough sleep, remember?) There’s no guilt (like a lot of people feel during their afternoon siesta’s) and the sleep is really peaceful.